London, England. October 31st, 1823
“Stand up you filthy boy!” A woman in the streets screams at me. I slowly stand up, raggedly taking in air as if I would breathe no more in a minute. The air is thick and heavy with smog, foul pollution from the factories. Mud drips from my clothes and sticks in my hair, zig-zag-ing down my face. I stare at the unkind lady, slowly tip my old and beaten up top hat, and walk away.
“Wretched creature! You’re a curse to us all!” the enraged and slightly delirious woman screams at me. She then proceeds to scream such utter vulgarities at me, I turn around slowly, a golden glint to my eye, and slowly pull out a silver pocket watch from the inside of my coat. A horse and cart clatters past, making a horrible clip-clop on the cobblestone roads. I tip my hat to the driver, and he gives me a crooked grin back. The wheel splashes through the puddle of mud I had just fallen in, and it splatters the filth all over the screaming woman, who shrieks like a banshee. Once it has passed the near-empty back street, I cross the narrow road, and walk next to the woman. She towers about a foot and a half over my thirteen-year-old frame, but crouches down until she is the same height as me. She decides to get up in my face and scream some more at me, spittle and saliva drops flying from her mouth and falling all over my face. I hold up the pocket watch, slowly opening it. A light shines out from inside.
“Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance. I gave you ample opportunity, but now you have chosen your fate. Now you will pay” I snarl, as menacingly as I can. I see the woman shudder as a shiver runs down her spine, but she tries not to show it, instead cackling madly.
“Is a dirty little street rat going to bite me? Give me all his diseases? Oh no, he’s going to tell me the time.” She grins, showing her yellowing and brown teeth, crooked and rotting. Her breath reeks of whisky and cigarettes.
“I warned you.” I said simply, dropping the scary act and shrugging. I check to see if anyone is around or could see what is going on, but there is no-one around. I open the watch.
A bright light shines out of it, and I direct it at the woman. After a minute or so, I close the watch, and the light fades. A glowing ball appears on the ground in place of where the woman used to be standing. I bend down and pick up the ball effortlessly, tossing it up and down as I walk up the street, whistling and shoving the watch in my pocket once more. I lift the ball up to my mouth and take a bite out of it, devouring it mouthful by mouthful until it’s gone.
The woman had been perhaps forty, and thanks to that, I get an extra twenty five years. She only had twenty five years left on her life, and I have just taken them away. She’s no big loss to the world, a rude and smelly woman from middle class 19th century England was no big loss to history.
I have been living like this for about five centuries now, changing people and living off the time they had left. Most often, I would find people who would be dying in extreme pain, and end it just before their pain starts, making a win-win situation for the both of us. I get their remaining time, they die in peace. Only sometimes do I consume those like the woman. She was a nasty piece of work who deserved what she got. I can choose which age I wish to be, and how long I wish to stay that age.
But I take the rest of other’s lives for myself.
I live on borrowed time.
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I know it's been posted before, but that one got deleted. So yeah. Thanks for reading! (virtual) Skittles for all! ^_^
